Swimmer Samiul Islam Rafi will swim in the men’s 100m freestyle event of the ongoing Paris Olympic 2024 today at the Paris La Defense Arena.

Rafi has been placed in Heat 2 with seven other swimmers Collins of Tanzania, Irvin of Suriname, Antoine of Cambodia, Nixon of El Salvador, Ovesh of Mauritius, Hamed of Oman and Yousef of Libya.

A total of 79 swimmers from different countries will participate in ten Heats while the top 16 swimmers from these Heats will qualify to the semifinals.

Rafi, who got the World Aquatics Scholarship 2023-24 – also known as FINA Scholarship – said his goal would be to beat his current timing and collect more FINA points to improve the world ranking. 

“My goal is to beat my current timing (53.12 sec) and collect more FINA points to improve the world ranking which will help me to participate in the other international competitions or qualifiers in future,” he told the Daily Sun during an interview before leaving Dhaka for Paris.

The 19-year-old Bangladeshi Swimmer was awarded an Olympic wildcard as he collected the highest FINA point in the country and took part in the World Championships in Qatar to fulfil the criteria.

While asked whether he could reach the final or semifinals, he replied, “I need to take a minimum of 40 sec (in the heat) to reach the semifinals or final. It is not possible at this moment. I am far behind in timing to reach semifinals or final, actually, all of our swimmers are far behind it.”